All News articles – Page 212
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News
CCTV upgrade
ENHANCEMENTS to the closed-circuit television, public address, passenger information and help points on London Underground are included in a £150m contract which Public-Private-Partnership contractor Tube Lines has awarded to Marconi and Amey Infrastructure Services.The 13-year contract covers stations on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. An intelligent maintenance system will ...
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Grande Ceinture Ouest reopened
SNCF has reinstated passenger services over a section of the orbital Grande Ceinture belt line round the west of Paris.The €91m project was completed at the end of last year, with trains entering commercial service with the timetable change in mid-December.The 9·8 km route runs from Saint-Germain-Grande-Ceinture to Saint-Germain-Bel-Air, Mareil-Marly, ...
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Centenary Congress
As we prepare to celebrate our 100th birthday and mark 170 years of railway publishing, plans for our Centenary Congress on July 1 are well in hand.We have a first-class line-up of expert speakers who have been briefed to examine future developments in railway technology in the context of an ...
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Suppliers take on the contractmaintenance challenge
INTRO: As train operators seek to reduce whole-life costs and improve reliability, they are increasingly contracting out responsibility for their rolling stockMAINTENANCE AND support services are becoming a crucial factor as competition starts to spread through the rail sector. Around the world, deregulation and privatisation are forcing both existing and ...
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ClearVue through the fog
RAIN, mist and smoke degrade the quality of images produced by surveillance cameras, reducing their usefulness to operators. To tackle this problem, Manchester University spin-off company Dmist Technologies is commercialising a device it has developed to automatically enhance video.ClearVue is a compact electronic unit which sits between the camera and ...
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Coastal corridor
TENDERS are due this month for a 15-month contract to design three extensions to the M
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Norwegian competition starts
THREE BIDDERS have submitted tenders for a 10-year contract to operate inter-city services on the Oslo - Gjøvik route from June 2006. Final bids were presented to the Ministry of Transport & Communications on February 7.The 123 km Gjøvikbanen is one of three pilot projects for the introduction of competition ...
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Competitors emerge for Renfe freight
CONTINENTAL Rail has become the second company to apply to the Spanish Ministry of Development’s Railways Directorate for a licence to operate freight trains on the national network.Owned by construction group ACS, Continental Rail currently has 25 employees and operates construction trains for the Madrid - Barcelona and Córdoba - ...
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Jarvis completes Tube Lines sale
UKENGINEERING and PFI group Jarvis announced on January 29 that it had completed the sale of its one-third stake in Tube Lines to Amey for a total gross consideration of £146·8m. This includes £95·5m from Amey, release of existing cash collateral of £51m mostly relating to the assumption by Amey ...
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NewsFreightlink reviews Darwin traffic
NO SOONER had we reported Freightlink's delight with the first year's performance on the Adelaide - Darwin route (RG 2.05 p70) than contractor Mowlem announced in London that it was not satisfied. In a statement on February 3 Mowlem said 'it is now apparent that freight volumes on the Alice ...
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Defrosted point
PRORAIL completed its first large-scale installation of Icesolution geothermal point heaters in sidings at Lelystad during December. Developed by Holland Rail Consult and Volker Stevin Rail & Traffic, Icesolution uses heat extracted from the ground to prevent the build-up of ice (RG 8.03 p513). The heaters come on only when ...
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DEMU inspection ensures quality
NEXT month NedTrain Consulting will complete a contract awarded by HSBC Rail to monitor the construction of a fleet of inter-city DEMUs by Bombardier. The Class 222 Meridian units for British franchisee Midland Main Line and the similar four-car Pioneer sets for open-access operator Hull Trains are being built at ...
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Paris depot reconstructed to maintain TGV Est Européen fleet
INTRO: Now under construction east of Paris is the depot needed to maintain the TGV Est train fleet. Jean-Paul Masse visited the siteSITUATED 4 km from Paris Est station, SNCF’s Ourcq coach maintenance workshop provides an ideal location to maintain the trainsets for TGV Est Européen.Currently used to service loco-hauled ...
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Desiro UK gets service for life
INTRO: Over the past eight years, Siemens has built up an extensive maintenance operation in the UK, opening new depots based on ’pit-stop’ principles IN OCTOBER 2004, Siemens Transportation Systems was awarded a 19-year contract from BAA plc to maintain the Heathrow Express EMU fleet until 2023, together with a ...
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IE orders inter-city DMUs
ON JANUARY 31 Ireland's Minister for Transport Martin Cullen announced that Iarnród Éireann had placed its biggest-ever order for new rolling stock, valued at €262m. A fleet of 120 diesel multiple-unit vehicles (RG 8.04 p448) will complete the replacement of IE's inter-city fleet, of which half is more ...
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Dual-gauge loco to start trials
ABOUT TO undergo testing in Spain is a dual-gauge electric locomotive designed to run at up to 260 km/h. Starting point for the design was a prototype Talgo XXI diesel-hydraulic power car built in 1998 using a gauge-convertible power bogie developed with Krauss-Maffei and Voith. Patentes Talgo has built the ...
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Dual-gauge trains to Lisboa
Portuguese Transport Minister Antonio Mexia has announced plans for a high speed line between Lisboa and Porto.Five options were examined by RAVE, the company responsible for planning and building high speed lines in Portugal, and Refer, the national rail infrastructure authority which owns 40% of RAVE. The ministry has chosen ...
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Dubai metro to start in May
CONSTRUCTION work on the two-line metro network in Dubai is expected to start on May 5, with a target completion date of September 9 2009. The timescale was announced last month by the Municipality’s Director-General Qassim Sultan, who chairs the metro steering committee.Technical bidding for the 70 km network (RG ...
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Easing the strain
BACK injuries can be a problem for maintenance staff working underneath trains, so Metronet asked Harmill Systems to develop a trolley-mounted access seat which would improve the ergonomics of working in a depot inspection pit on London Underground. The 60m long pit at the Waterloo & City Line depot ...
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SNCF sets service level on TGV Est
ON FEBRUARY 2 SNCF announced details of services planned over the TGV Est Européen line when it opens on June 15 2007.In contrast to other French high speed lines where there has been a gradual build-up, TGV Est Européen will offer frequent services from day one with 85% of the ...